2/07/2017

Lafcadio - Part 3

I feel a tear forming. Even after all these years, the
memory still hurts. I pull out the faded bandana I keep in my back pocket to
use as a handkerchief. Making a show of blowing my nose, I surreptitiously wipe
my eyes at the same time. It wouldn't do to cry in the waiting room at Penn
Station.

A glance at my watch tells me it's almost 6:30, and the concourse is
starting to come to life. I leave my seat and pace around a bit, reading the
Arrivals board and checking out the offerings at the newsstand.Then I head back
to the waiting area and sit on the other side of the room. I allow my thoughts to
take me back to Afghanistan again.

~

I should tell you a bit about our group. Ed Patterson, the oldest, was a master sergeant with 15 years in. The guy was a natural-born leader, so naturally he led us. He was a sat-com specialist back then. I think he'd intended to be career, but he ended getting his 20, and getting out. When he left the Corps, he went to work for one of the big telecommunications companies.Carlos Morales, a sergeant, was an interpreter. His native language is English, but the Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants grew up speaking Spanish too. It turned out he had a gift for languages, and the Corps put him through a Pashto course at the language school in California. Not much call for that in back here in the world, I guess, so Carlos is in real estate now.Paulie Newton, also a sergeant, was in explosive ordnance disposal. When he got out, he ended up working at the New York Public Library running their computer system. He says he'd had enough of noisy work environments, and besides, his hearing was pretty much jacked.The kid, Jimmy Flanagan, a corporal, was a mechanic. Who knows what he would have been when he grew up. A teacher, maybe. Or an actor.And then there's me. I'm Matt Cameron. I was an MP. There was no way I was going to stay in, either in the military or in police work. So I wrote.~After Jimmy died, something was gone out of it for the
four of us left. With all his silliness, he was the light that kept us keeping on. Ed, Paulie,
Carlos, and I continued to sit under the outcropping overlooking the poppy
fields, but there was no more yukking. There were no more stories and silly poems. There was only silence.
That, and the note that Jimmy Flanagan left
behind for us, tucked securely under the innersole of my left boot.

The next day, we went through Jimmy’s stuff, getting it ready to send
back to his mom. We’d met Kathleen Flanagan while we were home, and we all
loved her. She was a warm and funny woman with the map of Ireland drawn in freckles on her face.
It was easy to see where Jimmy had gotten his personality. She welcomed us into
her home as if we were family. And, lord, how she loved her boy. She was a
single mom. Jimmy's dad had died in a car crash when Jimmy was only ten, and Jimmy was all she had. We knew she was going to be destroyed
when she got the news.

“Hey, look at this,” Paulie, said as we were putting Jimmy’s
books into the box. “This is the book about that lion.”

“Read it,” I said, and he did. Blinking away the tears that threatened to spill from our eyes, we
listened to Paulie read the story of the lion Grrmmff who came to be known as
Lafcadio the Great.

When he got to the end, Paulie turned the final page and a small
pink envelop fell out. I bent down and picked it up. Turning it over, I was
surprised to see our names on the front.

I lifted the flap and pulled out a piece of folded note paper.
It was also pink, decorated with delicate little silver cruets of flowers and
teacups with tiny spoons. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it might be giving off a
sweet gardenia scent.

“And? What’s it
say?” Ed demanded.

It wasn’t long. I quickly skimmed, horrified. This was our wet-behind-the-ears
buddy Jimmy? No fucking way.

Taking a shaky breath, I read:

“Yeah, yeah, I know, guys” it began. “But it’s all I had. It’s
my mom’s paper. She packed a bunch of it with my stuff so I’d be sure to write
to her. I’m not writing you a love note or anything. Ha-ha. But in case anything
happens to me, there’s something you gotta know.”

The note went on to tell us why he was worried that something
might happen to him. Sure, we were all afraid we might get wounded or even
killed in Afghanistan. But it turned out that Jimmy’s fears were far more
alarming. Seems our Jimmy was secretly liaised to a quasi-military black ops
organization called AlcázarSentinel Security.

“These are bad people,” Jimmy had written. “They’re supposed
to be helping protect the NATO forces in Afghanistan, but I found out they’re
really in it for the opium. I’m not sure, but I think they know I know. And I’m
pretty sure they’ve killed others to protect their interests. There’s a
shitload of money at stake.

“There’s no one over here I can tell. If anything happens to
me, you guys gotta do something when you get home. And if you can, take care of
my mom.”

I folded the pink paper again, thinking how the frivolous
silver cruets and tiny spoons on the cover were so incongruous with the dark
message inside.

We read Jimmy's words again many times, but by tacit agreement, we
didn't discuss it right away. We were still too raw. But we knew we would. We had to; it wasn't
something we could ignore. We had to do something.The question was, what?

To be continued in
Part 4: Barooom!(Credit, and thanks, to author Shel Silverstein.)